A Saiyan's Sacrifice
by Chelstar
Summary: This story is staged shortly after the Cell Games, and focuses mostly on Vegeta and Bulma in the 7 year gap between Cell and Majin Buu. As the story progresses, so will Vegeta and Bulma's relationship. Some of the other Z fighters will make appearances too! B/V, R&R!
1. Chapter 1

**Alright guys! I'll leave it up to you if this is a one shot or not. Dragon Ball Z does NOT belong to me, this is only a fanfiction. The song is also not by me. It's called "Lullaby for a Solider" and it's sung by Maggie Siff, but I'm honestly not sure if it was written by her or for the show it's from. Anyways, R&R if you want more chapters!**

Sweat dripped from the Saiyan's proud forehead, spattering the floor with a violence that could only be achieved in 450x Earth's gravity. Vegeta had been at it long since the rest of Capsule Corp had laid itself to rest, unwilling to succumb to sleep himself. Again and again he shoved up from the floor in perfect posture, his sculpted figure straight as an arrow, his feet inching towards the ceiling with every exhale through clenched teeth. Salty perspiration burned into coal black eyes that, though full of fire, were focused elsewhere. He'd lost count of his reps, the numbers crushed into an abyss of memories that plagued his overburdened mind. He could find no respite, even in this. He had driven himself to the brink time after time, nearly blowing the GR to bits in a fit of fury that he, the last Prince of the greatest warrior race to ever ravage the universe, couldn't even battle his own thoughts.

_The boy avenged his fool of a father, but I could not avenge my own son. My rival is dead, the glory of his defeat stolen from me by that freak…_ Vegeta touched down with grace that would put an Olympic gymnast to shame, panting as he settled on his hands and knees. _Will there be no end to the mockery? To the shame? Even in death I won't have my vengeance. That third class clown won't be where I'm going._ Roaring at the injustice of it all, the Saiyan drove his fist against the floor with more might than he'd meant to. It split open in a wide fissure that B-lined for the control panel, causing it to crack and spark upon impact.

But Cell would be there. Freiza, too. If he could spend an eternity tearing them limb from limb, eternity couldn't come soon enough.

Vegeta sat back on his heels, dragging a gloved hand down his face in frustration as he assessed the damage. He'd opted for training in full armor as of late, with the idea that it could somehow motivate him to push further beyond his limits. As if he didn't do so religiously already, and for what? Kakarot was dead, Freiza was dead, the Androids and Cell were dead. Well, not entirely. Blondie was alive, but she was hardly the toaster she used to be. There could be no glory in her death. There could be no glory even in the death of Kakarot's whelp, who had stolen his chance to avenge Trunks and had even dared to save his life, stripping him of an honorable death in battle. There could be no greater shame...

_At least the boy has Saiyan blood_. It was little, if any, consolation.

Blinking sweat out of his eyes with a scowl, Vegeta turned his head from the panel towards the faint flicker of Bulma's ki. A much smaller ki nearly overlapped her own, and they seemed to drift as one in his mind's eye. From the vixen's squawking, he'd gathered that the boy hadn't been sleeping well, and had woken up wailing almost every night since Cell's ultimate defeat.

To his surprise, she'd left the Prince to his own devices for the most part, which was unsettling. He'd overheard her bitching about the child to her hair-brained mother in the kitchen, mostly on the rare occasion that they took their meals at the same time. However, if she happened to catch Vegeta's eye her own would soften, and she'd change the subject. She hadn't tried to speak with him yet. Not about Cell, nor present or future Trunks. Not about anything. She'd deferred to him without argument when he was in need of her technical expertise. He suspected she would have taught him the mechanics of it all herself, just to give him peace now that peace had come… if only to the rest of the world.

She'd been nothing close to what he had expected, after having abandoned her when she was pregnant only to return once the battle had begun. She was too tame with him. Too passive. It made him angry when he should have been relieved. Suspicious when he should have been grateful for both space and silence. Come to think of it, there were many things he should have been grateful for over their time together.

It had taken Vegeta a long time to chase his thoughts in such a convoluted circle that he finally arrived at a very unselfish conclusion. He'd driven himself to the near brink of death such was his exhaustion, having taken all of his frustrations out on only himself for months. He'd been too tired to be angry, too exhausted to cling to hatred and prejudice, and without those parts of him to grind all the rest to a pulp, he'd found a rare moment of solemn reflection. Prince of all Saiyans though he may be, he was not the Prince of all Earthings. He was an alien here. Had been given a chance at a life away from the reputation he had carved with his macabre hands under Freiza's reign.

Bulma had given him that chance. Bulma had given him a home. A place to train. Companionship, however dysfunctional it had been. She had shown him patience. Acceptance. Her faith in him seemed to rival Kakarot's, though where that imbecile's good-natured garbage lit a fire in Vegeta, the woman's confidence in him filled him only with pride, when the initial suspicions were discarded. It had startled the Saiyan Prince to realize that he actually cared about what that scheming earth woman thought of him. Those thoughts alone had at last submerged the tired warrior in the closest thing he'd had to a goodnight's sleep in longer than he cared to remember.

Recalling all of this, the Saiyan's breathing had slowed considerably, and some of his restlessness had been diminished as well. He'd always had some goal or other his entire life, had striven endlessly to be the strongest, to crush all opposition. Since Cell's defeat and the death of the only other known full-blooded Saiyan in the universe, Vegeta didn't know what, exactly, he was working towards. For the first time since he was taken from his father by Freiza, Vegeta felt lost.

The Prince of all Saiyans felt loneliness, too, though he was loathe to admit it.

* * *

Vegeta shut the door quietly, not wanting to draw attention to himself. Hours of training had left him tired and starving, and he was planning a full frontal attack on the kitchen. Woe betide that absurd blonde woman if she'd left him nothing decent to eat.

Upon entering the kitchen, it appeared the ditz of a female would live to see another day. Taped to the fridge was a note that read _"Vegeta, dear: There's a whole turkey in the oven for you, with lots of all your favorite goodies wrapped up tight in the fridge! Make sure you eat it all; a handsome boy like you needs his nutrition!"_ She'd signed it with some sort of smiling rabbit creature that caused the Saiyan's nose to wrinkle in disgust. Crushing the note in his fist, Vegeta disposed of it on his way to the stove, salivating at the scent of the roasted bird still thick in the air. Normally he'd shower, change and then come down to eat, but the audible protests from his stomach convinced him to skip his typical routine. Just this once.

The universe had something else in mind.

Just as his gloved fist was closing around the handle to the stove door, his entire body snapped to attention and froze that way. His sensitive ears perked, straining to find the source of whatever had caught his attention. It was no small feat to distract a Saiyan from his dinner, but there was something insistent inside the Prince that told him to abandon the turkey for now and investigate. With a furrowed brow, he focused on the sounds drifting towards him until they formed into breathy, lilting words.

_"May you always be brave in the shadows…"_

Thoughtlessly, his fingers slipped from the rail and he made his way out of the kitchen.

_"'Til the sun shines upon you again…"_

Years of practiced stealth carried the Prince quietly to the stairs.

_"Hear this prayer in my heart, and we'll n'er be apart…"_

He went rigid as a stair creaked underfoot, and the voice stopped abruptly.

"…"

After what seemed a lifetime of standing and waiting, it picked up again.

_"May you stay in the arms of the angels…"_

Letting out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, he resumed his assent of the staircase.

_"May you hear every song in the forest… and if ever you lose your own way…"_

Vegeta made it to the first landing, and then crept up the second, too spellbound to recall that he could float up if he wanted to.

_"Hear my voice like a breeze… whisper soft through the trees…"_

With his back to the wall, the warrior inched down the hall little by little, drawing closer to the source of the siren's song.

_"May you stay in the arms of the angels…"_

Up ahead, a door stood ajar. A stream of light fell in a shaft to cast the opposite wall in a buttery glow, interrupted only by the swaying shadow of a womanly figure. Her torso was slightly distorted by the little boy she no doubt held in her arms, and it didn't take the Prince long at all to put two and two together. His lips formed her name in stunned silence as he lingered just outside the room, keeping out of sight.

_"May you grow up to stand as a man, love_  
_With the pride of your family and name…_  
_When you lay down your head for to rest in your bed,_  
_May you stay in the arms of the angels."_

Something foreign clenched in the Saiyan's chest, his face tight as confusion rapidly took the place of awe in his visage. His first instinct was to leave, such was the turmoil raging within; but as he turned to go, the plate of his shoulder armor struck the wall, and the enchanting shadow froze.

"Hello?" The female's voice drifted quietly from the room. Though Vegeta had begrudgingly admired her fire on more than one occasion, there was something about the woman when she was soft spoken and peaceful that set his mind at ease. Now, however, was not one of those times. The Saiyan's heart raced, fingers twitching at his sides as he struggled with his desire to avoid contact with the annoying wench, and the stronger instinct to not flee like a coward.

With a sigh and ever true to form, the warrior crossed his arms over his plated chest and stepped into the light.

"Vegeta? What are you doing up?" Though the woman phrased it as a question, he could tell that she'd known he was awake. He hardly slept these days, and from what he could tell neither did she.

"Training." His voice was a quiet rumble, his tone clipped as he tried not to wake the boy. He could feel a migraine brewing behind his eyes, and the last thing he wanted to hear was the brat wailing at the top of his half-saiyan lungs.

Her face fell slightly, and she turned away from him. "Do you need me to fix something in the gravity room?"

At the tone of her voice, his arms fell from their protective posture, his brow furrowing once more as his thoughts ran amuck. He could deal with a yelling Bulma. A flirtatious Bulma. An excited, annoying Bulma. He could deal with most aspects of her personality. Not gracefully, but to the best of his ability. This, though… he wasn't sure how to address it. She was always so open with him. Aggressively so. She'd always told him whatever was on the tip of her tongue as soon as it found its way there.

She hadn't changed. She was still like that with most everyone. But not with him. Not anymore. She'd shut him out.

Of all the things the Saiyan Prince had lost in the whole of his rotten existence, this one struck hard. On a deeper level. He'd taken the woman for granted and she'd never seemed to mind before. He'd demanded and had whatever he wanted of her, and though she fought him tooth and nail, she'd always done as he asked. They'd even been bedmates for a time, when the fire between them grew out of control. But now…

He'd lost his Saiyan family and his people. He'd lost his planet. He'd lost his chance of revenge against Freiza. He'd watched his full grown son die by the hand of an enemy that would have taken him out too if not for Kakarot's spawn. He'd lost the only other pure-blooded Saiyan he knew that was still alive. He'd lost honor and pride in equal measures. He'd lost it all but the one thing he had left that he hadn't considered.

And now it would appear that she was gone, as well. It was like losing his life all over again, along with everything in it. The wound in his chest from Freiza's beam, a wound that had long since healed, began to ache once more.

"Vegeta?"

The Prince had been so lost in his thoughts that his gaze had become enraptured with the night sky. Tearing his attention from the window, he instead focused on some speck or other on the ceiling, avoiding her outrageously blue eyes.

"The control panel's broken. I order you to fix it immediately."

Her voice seemed far away as she turned her back on him once more. "I'll get to it in the morning. Trunks has been keeping me up a lot… I just need some sleep, okay?"

The Saiyan gave what seemed like a grunt of consent, but really he was clearing his throat. "Fine. First thing in the morning, then. Now put the boy in that damn contraption and-"

Bulma's shoulders stiffened. Her voice, though still quiet, was a hiss. "And WHAT, your highness?"

"Come to bed." His voice was a growl, barely audible, and easily drowned out by the gasp of the heiress as she spun to face him. Her expression was one of total shock, and she stood there staring for what was a very uncomfortable minute for Vegeta. He was putting himself on the line, something he wasn't entirely confident in at this point. There was something about this new behavior of hers that was very off-putting, and it was not at all pleasing to him. Something just didn't feel right.

With surprising gentleness, she laid the sleeping child down in the cage she called a 'crib' and made her quiet retreat, hitting the light as she ushered him out. Not a word was spoken as she shut the door silently and walked down the hall with the Saiyan Prince close on her heels. He couldn't help the half smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth as his dark eyes followed the sway of her behind. Perhaps all was not lost after all. He could hardly believe that mere moments before he'd experienced such a ridiculous bout of insecurity. _I must be getting soft without Kakarot around._ Upon reaching her bedroom at the end of the hall, his pride began to swell once more on the threshold of reclaiming what little he could call his own. Vegeta really had no idea what hit him.

Bulma's shoulder length hair fanned out as she spun, her open hand crashing against his face with a sharp SLAP. His head whipped to the side, not from the strength of her blow but the shock of it. Before he could get out so much as a word of indignation, her door snapped shut, and the Prince of all Saiyan's was left thunderstruck in an empty hall, with nothing but an echo of the end.

**DON'T FORGET TO REVIIIEEEWWWW 3**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi guys! Sorry for the wait. I don't like to write until inspiration strikes, and it finally did! I hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it! As always, I don't own Dragon Ball Z or any of its characters. This is simply fanfiction.**

* * *

Bulma's blue eyes, bright as butane with her rage, scorched into the door where Vegeta's face had been. He was there, still. She could feel him, the tension tangible even through the barrier between them. The silence was deafening. Her chest heaved with her breathing, a light sheen of sweat seeping from her skin. She felt hot and clammy and dizzy, and more than a little guilty. She hadn't meant to hit him, but between Trunks keeping her up all hours of the night and months of tiptoeing around the surly Saiyan, she had lost what little patience she'd clung to. All at once the fight went out of her, and her back collided gently with the door, her fingers fumbling the lock as she slid down to the floor. It was an empty gesture. If Vegeta wanted into her room, a flimsy bolt wasn't going to stand in his way. Regardless, it made her feel better, and that was the only consolation she had at the moment.

She'd been so patient. They had all been through so much. Bulma had hoped, with time and consideration, that Vegeta might approach her of his own volition. With Goku dead, she knew that she was the closest thing on this planet he had to a friend. So the heiress had bit her tongue and pushed her anger and anguish away, always at the ready to receive him if he finally broke. She was confident that he would. Anyone would, after the life he'd had; after watching his son die, helpless to save him or to kill the alien freak who had murdered him.

She had no shame in admitting what a damn surprise it had been when Yamcha told her of Vegeta's actions. She could bitterly recall a time not long before when he'd been more than happy to stand by, a blast from an android taking her plane right out of the sky with Trunks and herself trapped inside. If not for Future Trunks they would both have died. Her baby boy should never have been in there with her to begin with, and it turned her stomach that her irresponsibility had very nearly gotten them both killed. But nothing made her sick like Vegeta's indifference. She had hated him for that. Even after his evident change of heart when Cell had killed Future Trunks, she harboured that hatred. He was a monster.

She loved him anyways.

Bulma had no idea how long she sat there on the floor until the Saiyan's steps finally receded down the hallway, and a tired sigh of relief gushed from her lungs. Exhaustion hit hard as the adrenaline left her, and she mustered the last of her energy to right herself and gracelessly fall into bed. Her head lolled to the side, and her eyes flit first from the baby monitor to the time, and the time to the phone in its cradle. She bit her lip, the device blurring as her eyes watered. Bulma didn't need a raunchy round with Vegeta. She needed love. Companionship. Support. She wasn't the type to lay around feeling sorry for herself, but she couldn't help it. Her best friend was dead. Future Trunks had left for his own timeline. The man she loved was an incorrigible bastard.

The heiress felt defeated. She couldn't invent her past away. She couldn't devise a machine to bring Goku back from the dead. She couldn't reprogram Vegeta into some semblance of a decent human being. She was a control freak through and through, and the helplessness she felt was devastating. Her optimism was all but buried beneath the weight of her grief.

She knew there was at least one person in the world she could turn to right then. One person she could call anytime, any day for anything. But did she want to go there? Did she want to use him as a crutch, rely on him until she regained the right state of mind only to throw him away as she had so many times in the past? She knew there could be no future for them. It just wasn't in the cards. And yet…

"Yamcha…"

Her voice cracked and bled into a sob as she curled in on herself.

* * *

Vegeta left the house in a daze. As he passed through the kitchen, the smells that had him salivating a moment before now churned his stomach. Biting back the nausea, he burst into the open air and shot off like a rocket into the night sky, clearing an easy mile before the kitchen door swung closed. He flew aimlessly, putting as much distance as he could between himself and Capsule Corp. Farms and cities, mountains and lakes and rolling hills all blurred beneath him. The wind roared in his ears as he sliced through the night air, cooling his heated flesh.

He flew for hours.

The earth felt strange underfoot after being airborne for so long. Vegeta had no idea where he'd ended up, but he had flown around the world numerous times, chasing the sun as day bled into night, night into day. The island was small and tranquil in the soft tones of twilight, water lapping relentlessly at its perimeter. One day, the corrosion of the water against the shore might very well eat away the small mound in its entirety. That was the way of the universe - always moving towards a state of elimination. The Saiyan Prince had spent countless days contemplating the dynamics of good and evil, of light and darkness, and had come to the conclusion that darkness was - had always been - prevalent. Death always won over life, after all. Every born life began its course towards ultimate destruction at the moment of its creation. One had only to picture a sentinel star, alone in the universe, to grasp the concept. It comes alive from the darkness in brilliance, and to the darkness it returns, inevitably. Millions of years later, billions, it doesn't matter. Time is nothing. Life is nothing, in the shroud of that great, oppressive darkness.

Power is the only thing that matters; the ability and the will to fight the inevitable when it comes to your door. To fight not with fear but pride, is the essence of a Saiyan. His people were a race meant to thrive and to conquer. Vegeta was much the same, but differed in one key aspect. He wanted not only to fight but to know. The Prince of all Saiyans was a sieve for knowledge, which had given him a hefty advantage over comrades and enemies alike. Vegeta may be loath to admit it, but the Saiyan's were not vastly known or respected for their intellect. Nappa, Raditz and even Kakarot were all key examples of this, and likely inspiration for Freiza's favorite nickname. If Vegeta had a ki blast for every time that freak had called him a 'stupid monkey', the entire universe would be in ashes.

They were not monkeys. They were a race of fearsome Oozaru, Vegeta their prince. He couldn't dispute their stupidity, though. There was a reason after all that Vegeta remained while his two companions and rival were dead and gone.

He had a brain.

The only thing he lacked, it would seem, was a comprehension of the fairer sex.

Bulma was an enigma. That woman changed with the sun's position in the sky. You could never, at any given moment, determine what her reaction would be to any given thing. She seemed to have no set way of dealing with life. Instead, her fluctuations in mood determined her response to all things, great or small. Those fluctuations, much to Vegeta's chagrin, were absurdly frequent. He himself was a rock. Steady, predictable. You could always rely on him to be his constant, prideful, stubborn self, and though the woman could match even him on certain days, her form was ever changing. She could be as solid as stone one minute, a puddle of weak female emotion the next. She could be vulgar and cruel or gentle and kind. The only consistent things about Bulma were her intelligence and her beauty, both of which had vastly evolved in the time he had known her.

She enraged him. The fact that such a useless human woman could claw her way so far beneath his skin was ludicrous. He may have conquered her body, an act he had taken great pleasure in, but he could not conquer her mind, or her soul. Nothing in this world, or any other from what Vegeta had gathered and witnessed first hand, could quench the fire in her frail little body. They were alike in that way; the measure of respect that inner strength had earned from the Prince had spared her life on more than one occasion. If he was being honest with himself, his surprise and amusement at her antics had often rivaled his desire to snap her neck. He was at once disgusted and enthralled by his fascination with Bulma. She was, in her own right, a princess of this planet. She often boasted of being the smartest, richest woman on earth, with a prideful thrust of her chest and a wicked smile that stirred something primal within him.

He was the Prince of all Saiyans. She was an exotic creature of little import in the universe, and yet she held power and sway in her own right, over her own planet. That was worth something, he supposed. But what was he thinking? As if he would ever take an earthling for a mate. The idea was at once mortifying and laughable. Still…

He wanted her. He wanted to possess her, to own her for the remainder of her existence.

Fortunately and unfortunately, she had clearly expressed that she did not share the sentiment. He could still feel the ghost of her hand where she had struck him, where she had once held him as she writhed beneath his body. His fingers twitched at the recollection, and his mouth went dry. The rejection hadn't been anticipated, and had stung far worse than her pathetic strike ever could. Further reflection had left him baffled at her actions. She had been passive, considerate and barely annoying at all for months now. She had all but invited him in, opening one door as she had sealed others against him. He had been certain she wanted him, would welcome him into her bed without hesitation or protest. How wrong he had been.

Vegeta didn't like to be wrong, and he certainly didn't like to be refused. He could have broken that door down and taken what was his, what had been his since the day she had surrendered her body to him. But something had held him back. Had held him, rooted to that spot in front of her bedroom door, for what felt an eternity before he had relented. He had no idea what that something was. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. He did, however want to know what had possessed her to behave that way. She was a puzzle, a complex problem he wanted to crush in his bare hands out of sheer frustration.

He had to know. She had insulted him, had hurt his pride, and he had simply walked away. If he still had a tail, it may very well have been between his legs.

Resolutely, and with his lips curled up in a snarl, Vegeta took off into the sky.

* * *

"I really don't know what's wrong with me. The battle's been won for months now. I should be grateful for peace, we all should, but I just can't wrap my head around everything that's happened."

Bulma sat sunning herself on the patio, a long island ice tea resting against her thigh. Yamcha sat across from her, shirtless and soaking up some rays himself. Where once she had looked on his physique with admiration and desire, she now barely spared him a glance. He was nothing compared to Vegeta (where was he, anyways?), physically or mentally. He was an earthling. He was a famous baseball player. You'd think that would be enough for Bulma, but no, she had to go and fall for a sociopathic alien prince who had slaughtered uncounted civilians throughout the universe. He'd even murdered Yamcha, and what had she done? Shacked up with him and had his child.

Sometimes, she wondered if she wasn't quite right in the head herself. Geniuses seldom were.

"I'm not sure what to say, B. I guess I'm just thankful that most of us are still alive. I can tell you one thing though. My fighting days are done. Let the Saiyan's and Piccolo save the world from now on. I'm tired of getting my ass kicked." Yamcha laughed at his own good humor while Bulma bit her lip, a tiny crease forming between her brows. "I don't know how much faith I have in them with Goku gone. He was our champion, the glue that held us all together. Without him…" Bulma took a sip of her drink, but really she was doing her best to swallow back tears. She was thankful for her oversized sunglasses, and amused herself with setting her glass back directly where it had been before, matching the bottom rim to the damp circle glistening against her milky thigh. "He was my best friend. I know he's been gone before, but it was different then. I could still feel him out there. I knew he was coming back, but now I miss him so much. Poor Chi-Chi and Gohan…"

She'd been playing with the idea of throwing a big reunion bash, but it still felt too soon. She'd see nothing but the face that wasn't there, and with her spirits so low she'd be a crappy hostess. Bulma didn't throw lame parties. She wasn't about to start.

"Sorry to interrupt you love birds, but I have a sweet little boy here who woke up asking for his mommy!"

The sing-song tone of her mother's voice, and the sight of Trunks in her arms, lifted Bulma's heart. "Hi baby," she cooed as she set her drink aside and Bunny lowered him into her arms. Free of the child, her mom made off like a shot, no doubt to give them privacy or tend to something baking in the oven.

"He's getting big," Yamcha said, glad for a distraction from the serious conversation they'd been having.

"Isn't he?" Bulma glowed with pride, giving Trunks a kiss on the nose as she rose from the comfort of her chair. "Would you like to hold him? I know you haven't seen him in a while." Bulma felt that familiar pang of guilt. Yamcha had been there for her when she'd first had Trunks, long after Vegeta had gone off into space. He'd done so much for the both of them, and she'd barely said a word to him since Cell's defeat. With those thoughts in mind, she held her baby boy out to him as if she were extending the olive branch. When Yamcha took him, smiling and bouncing him in his lap, some of the tension went out of her and she smiled.

Maybe things were starting to look up after all.

* * *

Vegeta slowed as Capsule Corp came into his line of sight. Reaching within himself, he sought out the familiar energy signatures of the residents, looking for one in particular. He found it instantly through familiarity, but another life force close by gave him pause. He hovered in the air a moment before dropping to the ground just inside the compound, squared shoulders and measured strides taking him towards his ultimate goal. That energy was familiar, in an unpleasant way. It was nothing special and yet he could recall it, if not the face behind it.

Lab techs and grounds keepers scurried past him with their eyes to the grass. Everyone had heard about 'that scary man with super strength', and they knew well to stay away. Still, he posed a striking figure in his armor, and as he glared at anyone who passed too close he received more than one appreciative glance from the women of the compound. Under normal circumstances he would have been disgusted, but after Bulma's scathing rejection it soothed his wounded pride to be looked upon with desire. His regal bearing and rugged features were rather alluring, after all. Bulma must have hit her head and scrambled her brains up like the frail, pathetic human she was.

All of those thoughts tapered away to nothing as a light breeze carried joyful laughter towards him. It had been so long since he'd heard Bulma laugh, he nearly missed a step. A flush crept up his neck and he glanced around quickly, but no one had been close enough to see him falter. Clenching his gloved fists at his sides, he straightened to his full height and marched around the capsule building towards the patio. He wasn't sure exactly what he planned on saying to the woman, but he'd spent the majority of his life improvising, and he'd seldom had trouble gleaning answers before.

If he'd found himself ill prepared for his confrontation with Bulma, it was nothing to how he felt when he beheld what awaited him.

That irksome energy had been coming from none other than the dog he'd put down years ago, the dog that should have stayed down, and would have if not for the woman's unfathomable fondness of him. The sight of him was enough to get the Saiyan's blood boiling, before he'd even registered what the weakling was doing. There, on his lap, was Vegeta's son and only heir. The heir to a legendary race of the fiercest warriors the universe had ever known, something that pathetic fool of a fighter couldn't begin to wrap his tiny mind around. He was bouncing the child carelessly in his lap, as if he wasn't holding a royal descendant but a nobody, and talking to him in some ridiculously abused form of English babble that, in Vegeta's opinion, crippled a child's learning at a pivotal stage in development.

The Prince had forgotten Bulma entirely, such was his outrage, and before he'd made a conscious choice to act he was marching towards the pair with murder in his eyes. He didn't see her as she jumped up from her chair, didn't hear her feeble protests. His sights were set on his son, his only goal to get the child away from the damaging influence of his former victim. Yamcha was too slow to register Bulma's sudden distress, and before he'd so much as realized something was amiss, Vegeta was standing directly in front of him.

Scarface's expression would have been comical if not for the rage the Saiyan Prince felt in that moment. Vegeta's hand flashed out, hooked two fingers into the back of the toddler's shorts, and yanked him clear of Yamcha's grasp. Holding Trunks out to the side, Vegeta bent over so his face was level with the weakling's, and let lose a temper that this world hadn't seen since the demise of Cell.

"KEEP YOUR FILTHY COMMON HANDS OFF OF MY SON!"

The sheer force of the volume blew back the lesser man's hair from his face, leaving him glued to the chair in shock and terror as Vegeta stormed away. Trunks still hung in the air, helpless to free himself as his father carried him off by the band of his swim shorts.

* * *

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	3. Chapter 3

**Hey guys! Your support was so uplifting that I managed to pump out another chapter! Hopefully you can look forward to more frequent updates in the near future. I'd just like to say that I am touched by your comments, and wish that a few of you weren't lurking as guests so that I could thank you properly! I'm honored to be having my work advertised off site in the "Just Saiyan" community after only two published chapters, and absolutely astonished that one of you went so far as to compare me to niteryde, who is a god among DBZ fanfic authors. To be honest, I almost cried when I read that. Thank you, thank you, thank you. **

**I'd also like to make a shout-out to AnkSkywalker, who has been a faithful fan since my first DBZ short a couple months ago, and to SaiyanPrincessBB who reviewed the first chapter of A Saiyan's Sacrifice and stuck around for more!**

**I don't own DBZ or any of its characters, but I do enjoy playing with them. Here's a new chapter guys. Eat it up. :)**

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It was all Bulma could do to stare stupidly after Vegeta's retreating form. It had all happened so fast that even her brilliant mind was lagging. For a moment she thought she had fallen asleep, or still was asleep, or just hadn't heard the exchange properly. It really seemed too damn funny to be real, or would have if not for the implications, and what they meant to her. Had Vegeta just acknowledged their son? She had only been waiting for this since his return from space training, no big deal right? No. Huge deal. Gargantuan deal. May-bring-about-an-aneurysm deal.

One thing was certain. Yamcha hadn't found it funny. Not one bit. He was in the process of vocalizing how very unamused he was, when Bulma threw a hand up to stop him in his tracks. "Not now, Yamcha, this is important! Do you understand what just happened?"

"What just HAPPENED is that arrogant ape got up in my face and kidnapped your kid-"

Bulma squealed in delight. She even gave a leap of joy. "He did! He did, didn't he!? I wasn't imagining it!" Vegeta had finally accepted Trunks as his son! It was more than she had dared to hope for since Future Trunks had been killed. She thought, if anything, that had been the end of any miniscule chance that the Prince might come around. She knew well his views on family. Attachments were weakness, and weakness was frowned upon by the Saiyan, if not downright despised. But now the tables had turned. All these months of patience could finally be paying off, and she wanted so desperately to go after him, to kiss him and thank him and finally have the little family she'd been dreaming of. She'd taken all of two steps before Yamcha's grip on her arm brought her to an abrupt halt.

"Wait B, let him cool off, he could hurt y-"

"Vegeta would never hurt me! I'm the mother of his son!" She cried, yanking her arm desperately from his grasp. She couldn't let this opportunity slip away.

Yamcha threw his hands up in the air, and for all she knew he was summoning Dende himself down to talk some sense into her. "He almost let you both die! He disowned Trunks and hasn't had anything to do with you in months! I had to sit here for an hour and listen to you bitch about just that before he showed up!"

Bulma's face went red with hurt and embarrassment. "Listen to me BITCH? You didn't HAVE to listen Yamcha. No one tied you to the damn chair!" Her voice was climbing as it often did when she was spiralling into a tantrum.

"Bulma-"

"You're just mad because of that ONE TIME years ago that he killed you-"

"EXACTLY! He MURDERED ME, Bulma! Do you hear yourself right now?"

Her face, bright as a cherry tomato, turned a shade darker. "I wouldn't expect you to understand!" She turned on her heel and marched away without a glance to spare for the man she left behind, shouting as she went. "You can let yourself out the same way you came in, you jerk!"

Anything else her outraged ex-boyfriend may have said was lost on her. Bulma had a goal, and when she zeroed in on a task, the rest of the world went away. Her only focus was catching up to Vegeta before he made it to the gravity room and shut her out. Sure, she could disable the newly repaired simulator and manually unlock the place, but any delay could mean her chance was lost. The GR was Vegeta's turf. She knew that the moment he stepped into that safe haven, he'd lock himself away from her both physically and emotionally. She did the only thing she could think to do, knowing full well she couldn't catch him in time if he had no desire to be caught.

She provoked him.

"Where the hell do you think you're taking Trunks you royal pain in the ass!"

There was nothing The Saiyan Prince hated so much as having his heritage mocked. It had the desired effect. He froze, and she could visualize the muscles layering his shoulders rippling with tension even if she couldn't quite see it through his plated armor. She'd become very familiar with his body language, and right now it screamed 'danger'. She was not afraid. Regardless of whatever crazy threats he made, she knew that they were empty. They would always be empty where she was concerned. He may have been willing to stand by and let her die once, but Vegeta would never be so cold as to kill her himself.

With faith in her heart and fire in her eyes, she stomped right up to him as he spun to face her with his teeth bared.

"Away from his hair brained mother and her idiot dog!" He was a hair's breadth from feral in his rage. She could feel the heat rolling off him, and her concern for Trunks hanging helplessly at his side significantly hindered her confidence. Bulma shook, torn between her concern for her son and her seething rage at the audacity of the alien Prince. She had done everything for Trunks since she first knew of his existence, and Yamcha had been the only man of the two to step up and take the role Vegeta had abandoned without a moment's hesitation. Where she had been furious with one man only a moment before, that same fury now reared its ugly head at the other, and gave her strength to voice it.

"DOG!? YOU CALL HIM A DOG WHEN YOU TOOK OFF WITH YOUR TAIL BETWEEN YOUR LEGS ONCE THINGS GOT A LITTLE PERSONAL BETWEEN US?"

Vegeta's eyes, black with his rage, blew wide. His lips drained of color, pressing into a tight line. "He is a dog, though, isn't he?" The Saiyan's voice had plunged to a soft and sinister tone, cruelty evident in his every utterance thereafter. "Always crawling back to you at the snap of your needy fingers, no matter how often you kick him away. You're both pathetic weaklings. You deserve each other, but a boy of Saiyan heritage deserves far greater than the likes of you."

Bulma Brief advanced a step and thrust her arm out, jabbing a finger towards the Saiyan's face. "We've all been just fine without you Vegeta!" She hollered. "Why make a show of stepping up now. HM?"

His grip on the toddler went slack. Trunks flailed as he lost balance and thunked down to the earth, rolling around before sitting up to glower at his mother. For a boy who, as far as she knew, had little to no contact with his father, he seemed very comfortable to be next to him right then, mirroring Vegeta's sentiments in his chubby little face. He got bored quickly though, and began tugging great clumps of grass from the ground beneath him, searching for bugs.

"Because he _died_." Vegeta hissed. Bulma's eyes snapped back to his, and the look he gave her right then made her feel that she was at fault; at fault and about two inches tall, to be exact. His fists coiled at his sides, elbows drawn tight to his ribs. Electric blue energy broke out over his body, and she knew that she had pushed him as far as she dared. Vegeta could control himself well enough under regular circumstances, but she knew that once he snapped, he became another person. He became the man who had been enslaved to Freiza's will, and the man who had been given a second chance at life was smothered beneath the weight of that tortured past.

"HE DIED BECAUSE OF YOU! BECAUSE OF THAT BLASTED TIME MACHINE YOU SENT HIM BACK IN! BECAUSE OF THAT DISGRACE OF A WARRIOR YOU CRY OVER WHEN YOU THINK NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU! HE WAS RAISED BY YOUR WEAKLING FRIENDS AND IT MADE HIM SOFT!"

Bulma took a step back, her face ashen.

"YOU MADE HIM SOFT! VULNERABLE! AND THEN YOU SENT HIM BACK HERE TO CHANGE THE PAST, INSTEAD OF GIVING HIM THE RESOURCES HE REQUIRED TO SAVE HIS OWN LIFE IN HIS OWN TIME! HAD YOU RAISED HIM AS A SAIYAN AND NOT SOME CODDLED EARTHLING, ALL WOULD NOT BE LOST TO HIM NOW!"

"V-Vegeta, please" she stammered, her eyes brimming with tears. "That was her, his mother. Trunks is only a b-baby here, it wasn't me, it-"

"It was you, Bulma." His ki seemed to dissipate all at once, and he straightened, folding his arms over his chest. He looked far off to the side, addressing her that way. As if she were no longer worth speaking to directly. "It will become you, without my interference. I refused Trunks because I lust for power, for greatness. Having a family has never been a desire or concern of mine. I refused him because I…" He grimaced then, a look of disgust twisting his strong features. "I put my trust in you. I had faith that the fire I saw in you would be enough. That through exposure to my ways, you would realize his own needs and raise him up to greatness, leaving me free to pursue my life's work."

Slowly, Vegeta turned his head, and it was as though an iron curtain had fallen within him. What she saw there, in those ageless, tired eyes, cut her to her core. "That trust was misplaced."

The only thing that kept Bulma standing at that moment was the gentle hand that pressed against her calf. Her gaze dropped, hot tears splashing down her chest, to see Trunks staring at her with eyes that mirrored her own.

"Mama!" He exclaimed, reaching his arms up for his mother.

She had to be strong. She would always be strong for Trunks, no matter what filthy accusations his father threw her way. "Say what you want of me, Vegeta." Her voice trembled, but she stood strong, and met his unflinching gaze with her own. "But you were his greatest weakness in that life." She bent down and grasped her son gently below his arms, hauling him up to rest against her hip. "It wasn't my presence that crippled him."

If looks could kill, he would be slain before her, Prince of All Saiyans or not.

"It was your absence."

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Vegeta could feel the steady, insistent throb of a vein in his temple. He hadn't been this fit to burst since his far gone days with Nappa. "I'm beginning to question the frequency of your presence in his life."

The Saiyan locked her in his gaze as he leisurely approached her.

"You seem to rely heavily on your mother to watch the boy. Some may say it's dedication to your work that keeps you away, but…" He was little more than a foot from her now, her upturned jaw affording him a good whiff of her neck as he leaned in. His breath moistened her ear as lips stretched wide in a wicked smile settled right next to it. "It smells to me like you've been too busy fucking scarface to raise him at all."

Her knee came out of nowhere, and it dropped him like a sack of potatoes.

He cupped himself, gritting his teeth as pain lanced up into his kidneys. It was all he could do to look up at her after such a low blow. Saiyan or not, he was still a man, and the only thing more vulnerable than what hung between his legs had been his tail.

"Bitch." He spat the word, wheezing as he struggled through the ache.

"My personal life is none of your business," Bulma seethed, "and the next time you have the _balls_ to bring it up, I'll crush them in my hands."

Vegeta stared after her as she stormed away with Trunks in her arms and her head held high. Once she'd rounded a corner, He pressed his forehead to the ground, a feral snarl ripping from his chest. Bulma had begun to sweat in the heat of her anger, the scent of her skin becoming more potent through saturation. He'd picked up the other man's scent just as Trunks had slipped from his grasp, and the thought of that filthy human touching her had sent him off the deep end. He wasn't about to chase her down and tell her that, though.

Needless to say, this was not what he'd had planned for the day.

Getting his feet under him, he managed to right himself and turn once more for the gravity room. He'd had enough of this garbage for one afternoon. That woman made him sick. The only thing more repulsive than Bulma was what she made him feel for her. He was no dog to be used for her amusement, and no man to be toyed with at her whim. Her words should mean less than nothing to him. What did she know of the boy from the future? She hadn't trained with him day after day in the hyperbolic time chamber. She hadn't watched him die at the hands of the enemy.

And yet…

_"You were his greatest weakness in that life."_

The Saiyan Prince punched in the passcode for the only home he knew. The door withdrew to accept him into the GR, and with a thud of finality, Vegeta shut the world away.

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